


Anchors and Castaways

by Merfilly



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crossover, Empathy, F/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, multiverse 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-01
Updated: 2007-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An X-Wing is picked up by the Enterprise....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchors and Castaways

Patrolling this rift in the very fabric of the galaxy had Deanna on edge. It was bad enough that the crew were all projecting so much tension into the ether, but her own empathy kept scraping against something out there, something dark and brooding, lost to hope.

She kept to her duties though, like a good ship counselor, talking to those in need, practicing with Worf and Beverly, even taking time to just be in Ten Forward, in hopes of finding some manner of relaxing against the hostile mental environment.

She was in Ten Forward when the call came...an unidentified vessel, drifting dead in space. Her nerves pricked at her, made her hastily leave her drink there with a nervous smile toward Guinan, so that she could go up to the bridge.

Luke felt a sharp sense of loss, as if everything he was accustomed to standing on and leaning against had just been jerked away from him. The pressure of holding up a wall to block out the intrusions of the man who claimed to be his father suddenly gave way, sending his consciousness spiraling outward, making him feel a multitude of souls...and a few flickers that felt like the Force, yet not.

Slowly, he allowed his heart to increase its pace, drew a breath a bit more often than he had been, coming up out of the Jedi coma he had put himself in when his ship systems began to fail in the Outer Rim.

He did not know who or what awaited him, but he did know he needed to face it with clarity.

A hesitant cheep from the navigational droid came forward, translated on his screen, and he smiled. Some things were constant for him. One was the connection to the Force. The other was the ever-present saving grace of a little droid called R2.

Captain Picard looked at the strange configuration of the ship ahead. It looked to only be large enough for a single person, possibly two. The canopy style suggested a 'dog-fighter' type vehicle, allowing the pilot to lay naked eyes on his opponents. The wing mounted laser cannons and torpedo mount were also indicative of a warrior system. When the ship had first been picked up...suddenly, as if it had just materialized...there had been only a faint life sign. Now that life sign had picked up its health, and there was something trying to communicate to the Enterprise.

Just as Commander Riker turned to announce the computer was working in a binary translation program with the small ship, Counselor Troi gasped and looked with wide eyes at the view screen.

"He is low on air, Captain Picard...he has not had life support in several hours." She looked at him with pitying eyes, and Picard nodded.

"Mister Worf, transport that pilot aboard. Lieutenant Data, maneuver to bring the vessel into the forward docking bay."

"Dispatching Security and Medical to the transporter room," Worf acknowledged.

"Yes, Captain," Data said simply.

Luke had never met a race of what looked to be pure humans who did not speak the basic language at all. He smiled and nodded and used his training to read the curiosity, the lack of true hostility, and just hoped he did not err. The feeling of the Force was blunted, as if he had been thrown back to his days as a farm boy, only vaguely aware of the connection he felt with the universe.

Luckily, these people seemed bent on making things happen, because by the time the woman with red hair was satisfied he was not hurt, he was offered a device and could understand them, through the device.

Then she walked in, the woman with the mind that felt like cool water in the shade after a day checking evaporators. He knew her on sight, the proximity to her causing his mind to push through thoughts he had not been plagued with since his initial confusion toward Leia.

She felt...inviting/safe/secure, an anodyne to all the ills that had struck him since Hoth. He knew, as well as he had known about the dangers in Cloud City for Han and Leia, that she felt him as strongly as he could feel her.

"Hello. I am Counselor Troi, and I am here to help facilitate your stay aboard the Enterprise."

"I'm Luke. Luke Skywalker."

They exchanged a glance, each feeling something in the other that put them at ease and on edge all in the same moment. He felt the peace that she could give, and almost gave voice in his mind to a wish to stay and enjoy that. She felt the strength of will and drive within him, saw that he carried within him the tiny spark of hope for an entire galaxy, and wanted to share in that brilliance, if only for a moment.

Picard had spoken to the young man they had brought aboard. Under advisement of his own instincts and his counselor, he had allowed the young man to have his astromech droid and tools to service the peculiar ship. That the ship, droid, and man came from another galaxy was obvious as soon as history sharing began. Deanna had almost let out a sigh of relief, to know finally why this rift radiated such menace.

Luke had looked her way, feeling that sudden release, and felt a perverse sense of guilt that the troubles of the Empire and the Rebellion had pressed in on her. He had then had to shift and rub at his face to hide the grin he felt, for such a ridiculous gallantry. Han had been right; he was a soft heart for a damsel in distress.

Now, working on fixing the power couplings, he wished she were there. Not that...Geordi...wasn't good company, and a quick study of the systems for his X-Wing, but he knew he would soon have to leave. The search for Han was continuing without him, and the Rebellion...his call of duty to friend and cause was too strong to let him stay, to explore the strange connection that had snapped into place.

"I thought you might be hungry," came from below the ship. He looked from the ladder he was on, seeing her there. She really was pretty, in a way completely unlike Leia's haughty beauty.

"Thank you, Counselor." He came down, giving R2 an affectionate pat and admonition to keep working.

"Luke, I need to go check on those tests, to see if the reactor material will work for your drive," Geordi said, also climbing down from the other side of the ship.

"Thank you," Luke remembered to tell the engineer, but his eyes stayed on the woman and her offered food. She cleared a worktable below the nose of the craft, setting food and drink out for both of them.

"This Rebellion you spoke of...how long have you been a part of it?"

"Not very long," he answered. "We've had several battles since I joined it," he clarified, feeling the real pull of her meaning.

"You have hope...no, you are the hope...for its end?"

"I don't..." He wanted to be humble, but he could not truly dismiss what she said. It was truth, from a certain perspective. "I am the last of the Jedi. Others look at my presence among the Rebellion as a sign things can be returned to their proper order, with the Senate restored in a new republic that works. So, yes, in that, I am the hope. I had hope at Yavin that we would see an end to the Empire's atrocities...." His voice trailed off, the fight so clearly in his mind.

//I am your father.//

"You cannot lose hope, Luke. What you do, what your friends do...without hope, you will founder, and even if your Rebellion succeeds, your new ways could be corrupted by the darkness you fight." She wanted to bring him a measure of peace, feeling the troubled spirit that threatened his mastery of this discipline he termed 'Jedi'.

"What if I am corrupted already, what if the corruption of the Empire was bred into who I am?" Luke's greatest fear that Darth Vader had spoken truly was that he, like Vader, would succumb to the Dark Side.

"Good, and evil, are not bred into people." She touched his hand, the one that was still organic. "Only our choices can define that for us."

That cool water feeling flowed over him again, as the touch heightened his awareness of her mind, of the open feeling that she was there to help him. He wanted to fall into that...but R2 beeped and whirred, telling him he had found the cause of the full power failure.

"The meal was good," he said hastily, though he had barely touched it. She just nodded, moving away.

She knew, with bittersweet certainty, that she would never meet a man quite like him again, and that he could not give to the temptation of even a moment's shared passion with her.

She also knew she would savor the feeling of his windswept, bright mind for years to come.


End file.
